Report: The business of AMASA keeps getting better

Earlier this year, Lyn Jones, chairperson of the AMASA Johannesburg committee, confirmed the following committee members for the 2013/14 financial year.

“This year for the first time we implemented an online voting system which was incredibly well received,” she says. “The following people were voted in unanimously and allocated individual portfolios.”

Two resignations have since been noted due to work pressures – Angela Childs from Vizeum and Richard Lord from The MediaShop. A later addition to the committee was Gareth Grant from FNB who has agreed to join the team.

Additional committee members are:

Gordon Muller, GSM Quadrant

Trish Guilford, Mediology

Wayne Bishop, PHD

Cherylann Smith, Global Mouse

Quinton Scholes, ABN

Dustine Tobler, MediaCom

Michelle Randall, United Stations

Paul Clarke, Whalley Brand Velocity

Wayne Bischoff, Habari Media

“It has been a super year for me and an absolute honour to be on the committee and work with such amazing and dedicated team members. I have grown and learnt so much, and being part of the AMASA workshops, forums, RGA judging, AAA Training and then celebrating at a phenomenal AMASA Party, I can honestly say, it’s been a great opportunity and experience so far,” says Cherylann.

ALP

AMASA’s Learnership Programme began in 2009 to inject fresh talent into the media industry. Starcom and Mediaedge were the first two agencies to partner with this AMASA initiative. Since then The MediaShop, Ads24 and NotaBene have also come on board.

Graduates are hosted at partner agencies for a remunerated internship and are provided with free attendance to AMASA’s six month AAA media course and four day annual ‘The Nuts n Bolts of Media Planning’ Workshop.

AMASA’s Johannesburg Chairman, Lyn Jones says, “Our primary focus is to drive the development of smart young people in our industry. Through the ALP we are offering talented graduates a foot in the door at South Africa’s top media agencies, to learn from the best.”

She adds, “The AMASA Learnership Programme is suitable to applicants who preferably have a degree or diploma, and who possess exceptional academic credentials, passion for the industry, and significant potential. Our core focus is to attract bright young minds into media, ensure that they excel, and to keep their intellect within the industry.”

Media Strategist at Carat, Prince Ndlovu, studied Marketing Communications at the University of Johannesburg. He first went through the ALP in May 2009 when he joined partner agency Starcom for two and a half years before moving to Carat.

“The programme was run at a very professional level,” says Prince. “It provided me with industry experience, and also allowed me the opportunity to go to school to study advertising and media. I was able to implement my learnings at an agency level.

Forums

During 2013 AMASA hosted monthly forums for the industry on the first Wednesday of each month. Topics and speakers were sometimes controversial but always thought provoking.

Over the months, AMASA hosted guests from Samsung, Vodacom, Unilever and SAB to name a few to debate several topics including Client Agency Relationships and the Role of the Media Manager.

“We also invited the GCIS to discuss the practise of bulk media buying by government and what it meant to the industry, and we were also fortunate to have Pete Langschmidt presenting his latest findings from his Consumer scope research,” says Lyn.

The forums for 2014 will be given a revived format so watch this space for details!

All news and events will be posted in our social spaces, so find us on Facebook/AMASAJoburg and follow us on Twitter @AMASAJoburg #AMASAForum

AAA – Media Management course 2013

This year has seen the largest class ever sign up for the Media Management course.

The course itself is offered to third year full time students as a Specialisation Diploma and as a Certificate course for part time students. AMASA had 21 full time students and 34 part time students this year in Johannesburg alone.

As is practice each year, AMASA highlights key individuals in the industry to lecture classes on a Tuesday and Thursday evening. The lectures this year were three hours long with each one including practical applications of what was being taught.

The client project this year was Samsung. “I would like to thank Lucien-Marc Vallun for giving the students a truly integrated and thought provoking brief,” says Trish Guilford, Head of the AAA portfolio. “Within two weeks the students, working in groups, had to present a full media plan back to Lucien. The standard of the presentations were superb and of an excellent calibre.”

“I do hope that we retain many of these wonderful students in our industry. Many have shown an incredible aptitude for media and will most definitely bring in new blood!” she says.

“The privilege of running the AAA course this year has once again left me feeling inspired and honoured to be being associated with so many fantastic individuals.”

Gordon Muller provides a lecturer’s point of view to ‘Making Media Magic’

You can always tell the difference between those people who have been told that getting into media is a good career move (if they don’t know what to do with their lives), and those people who really want to get into media. They both want to win an AMASA Roger Garlick award but people who really want to be in media realise that they have to acquire a piece of business first. And when it comes to winning media business these days, chances are the GRPs and CPPs were central to the effort.

So here’s the bad new folks, whilst we all love touchpoints, channel planning and being relationship architects, we also have to learn how to run the numbers. And the people who told you “there is no right or wrong answer in media” ain’t never had to balance a global reporting template. If you can’t calculate the media numbers you can’t compute the bottom line. That’s why that stuff’s in the AMASA course. Master it!

When you learn how to win a Loerie, that’s creative. But when you learn how to make your client’s money work twice as hard, that’s a little bit of media magic!

The Annual Workshop

Hosted in a new setting this year, AMASA’s annual workshop took place at the end of July at Emerald Resort & Casino.

The course is designed to give delegates a working and practical knowledge of media strategy and planning. Two days are spent in lectures where experts in the media and advertising industry impart their knowledge. Students are then required to formulate and present a media strategy based on information supplied by a live client brief.

“Besides learning about an innovative, highly diverse and interesting industry, the workshop provides the perfect opportunity to network with like minded people,” says Lyn.

“We were truly thrilled with the level of interaction and quality of the presentations that came through for this year’s client Pfizer.”

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